Get the Show on the Road
The Cleveland Orchestra on Tour
Anyone who has tried to schedule a vacation with a big group knows the overwhelming number of details to consider. Now imagine a trip with over 100 friends who bring a collective 12.5 tons of cargo. That is what goes into a tour with The Cleveland Orchestra. Touring with an entire professional orchestra is an expensive endeavor that requires so much planning; organizers typically begin working on international tours at least three years in advance. However, touring domestically and internationally can provide many benefits, including reaching new audiences, making meaningful connections with other musicians and musical institutions, and even acting as political gestures of goodwill. From the Orchestra’s first season, its leaders knew that touring was worth the time, effort, and funds, and the musicians continue to travel often and broadly, bringing the music and hardworking attitudes of Cleveland to the world.
Mere months after The Cleveland Orchestra’s inaugural concert in December 1918, the musicians hit the road to nearby towns, such as Pittsburgh, Akron, and Oberlin, in spring 1919. In a review of the Oberlin performance in Musical America, Frederic B. Stiven remarked, “How a body of musicians... can be trained in less than a year’s time to play as the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra did on last Tuesday afternoon is almost incomprehensible.” Additionally, Orchestra founder Adella Prentiss Hughes was passionate about education and quickly combined domestic touring efforts with children’s concerts, adding educational performances for the children living in cities the Orchestra visited. Within its first season, the Orchestra already expanded its reputation and connection to audiences of all ages through traveling.
Only two years after its first excursions outside of Cleveland, the Orchestra traveled even further in February 1921 to major cultural centers on the East Coast, such as Boston and New York, to overwhelmingly positive reviews. One year after their first East Coast tour, the Orchestra left the States for the first time and performed in Canada. Of their international debut, music critic Augustus Bridle of the Toronto Daily Star wrote, “Its performance last night was on a par with the biggest achievements here by any orchestra.” Venues asked the Orchestra to return many times, and it is fascinating to see the unity and esteem of the Orchestra grow over time. As New York City-based reviewer Deems Taylor noted in a 1923 volume of The N.Y. World, “When Mr. Sokoloff’s men visited us last season they exhibited many excellent qualities, but their showing last night was immeasurably ahead of anything they had previously exhibited.” Clevelanders immediately understood the importance and promise of their own orchestra; now, the rest of North America began to see it as well.
In 1927, the Orchestra traveled over water for the first time to visit Cuba. Dudley S. Blossom, Sr. — namesake of the Blossom Music Center — proudly proclaimed that the Orchestra has “taken the name of Cleveland abroad as a center of musical culture.” Continued domestic tours further established Cleveland as a cultural center in the United States, and reviewers from other cities continued to be impressed by the constant improvement and skill of the Orchestra. Following another small US tour in 1941, music critic Pierre Key extolled, “We have known for some time that [The] Cleveland Orchestra is one of the first-line symphony societies. On previous visits here, that fact was firmly established. Improvement since it last was here, however, lifted this band to a still higher place....”
Music director George Szell began his tenure with The Cleveland Orchestra in 1946, and after a decade honing the sound of the Orchestra, he felt ready to take his ensemble on a European tour in 1957. With sponsorship from the United States Department of State and other generous contributions, the Orchestra embarked for Europe in May 1957, where they performed 29 concerts in 22 cities (in 10 different countries) over 40 days. European audiences consistently called for encores after these performances, and the reviews showed that the Orchestra firmly established its international reputation. It was a turbulent time in politics due to the Cold War, so this European excursion furthered both the Orchestra’s reputation and cultural connections between Americans and Europeans. International tours, especially in tense times, are not only about the Orchestra itself. Following the tour, President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent a telegraph on June 18 with his congratulations: “Representing the finest in American music and good citizenship they [The Cleveland Orchestra] have served as effective ambassadors of peace and demonstrated again the importance of cultural exchanges between the nations of the world.”
The next European tour, which took place between April 16 and July 25, 1965, almost doubled the commitments of the Orchestra: 45 concerts in 18 cities. The Orchestra again wowed European audiences, with one newspaper claiming audiences in Moscow called for four encores. Szell took his music-making seriously, but he also accepted the significant responsibility of the Orchestra’s position as a cultural ambassador when tensions remained high across the globe. Of these musical tours, he noted that “It is the only contact that functions even when political relations are bad. It is the best means of teaching people to know and appreciate each other, despite all the dividing factors, and show them that in a higher sense they all belong together.” Listen below to a portion of an oral history interview with former Cleveland Orchestra General Manager, A. Beverly Barksdale, who recounts how the musicians from Moscow and from Cleveland assisted one another.
Following the successful 1965 tour, the Orchestra received invitations to attend the Edinburgh, Salzburg, and Lucerne Festivals in summer 1967, making them the first American orchestra to receive an invitation to perform at all three in the same year. This high honor perfectly aligned with the opening of the Orchestra’s fiftieth anniversary season, proving that The Cleveland Orchestra is not only a top American orchestra, but can also compete internationally.
Ready to reach even further, Szell led the Orchestra on its first trip to Asia in May 1970, with stops in Japan and one concert in South Korea. Famed composer and conductor Pierre Boulez also conducted during this trip. The Orchestra was a sensation in Japan, with packed houses and audience members sitting in aisles to hear their playing. When returning from Asia, the Orchestra stopped in Anchorage, Alaska, to perform Beethoven’s “Eroica” under the baton of Szell. It would be the last time Szell conducted The Cleveland Orchestra; he died the following month, in June 1970. However, Asian audiences now understood firsthand the Orchestra’s mastery, and regular concerts continued under the next music director, Lorin Maazel, who took the Orchestra to Japan (1974/78/82), South Korea (1978), Hong Kong (1974/82), and Manila (1982).
Under Maazel, the Orchestra reached more continents and territories. In 1973, the Cleveland musicians visited Australia and New Zealand, even performing during the opening of the Sydney Opera House. The Orchestra impressed Oceanic audiences, leading L.C.M. Saunders of The New Zealand Herald to claim, “Distinguished orchestras have visited us in the past, but The Cleveland Orchestra brought a new and greater revelation of virtuosity possible in orchestral playing.” Maazel also took the Orchestra on three Latin American tours in 1975, 1977, and 1981, with stops in Mexico, Venezuela, Brazil, and Argentina, among others. Maazel continued the touring legacy of prior directors and pushed the Orchestra to become even more of a global sensation.
Following so many successful — yet somewhat sporadic — tours, The Cleveland Orchestra increased its commitment to international touring, particularly beginning with Music Director Laureate Christoph von Dohnányi’s tenure from 1984 to 2002. Visits to Europe became almost biannual events and travels to Asia occurred about every three years. During this time, the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus joined the Orchestra for their first combined tour to Europe in 1986, marking the first international tour of any major American orchestra to include its own chorus.
Not content to merely visit the same locations again and again, the Orchestra visited mainland China for the first time in 1998. This tour included a performance in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People — equipped to handle up to 10,000 attendees — for an audience that included the Chinese President at the time, Jiang Zemin. International audiences everywhere praised the Orchestra’s unity and attention to dynamics. Following Dohnányi’s last European tour as music director in 2002, critics spoke highly of the precision he cultivated, which “preserved its [the Orchestra’s] technical standard and international reputation,” according to London critic Andrew Clark.
Current Music Director Franz Welser-Möst’s first European tour with the Orchestra in 2003 initiated a longstanding Musikverein residency in Vienna. Their first set of concerts elicited many encores and even a standing ovation after a performance of Britten’s War Requiem. Viennese critic Wilhelm Sinkovicz praised this residency, claiming that “[the] Orchestra ranks among the very best of the world” and “the magic of sound they create borders on the unbelievable.” This connection continues to this day, with the Orchestra returning about every other year. The 2003 European tour also kicked off another residency in Lucerne.
Following Welser-Möst’s arrival, international tours took place every year to varying locations across Europe and Asia. In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted travel across the world, canceling a planned tour to Europe and the United Arab Emirates. After three long years, international travel resumed once more in August 2022 as the Orchestra toured Europe, making it Welser-Möst’s twentieth international tour with the Orchestra and the 78th international tour for the Orchestra overall. The Clevelanders have been busy domestically as well, with their Miami residency and consistent adventures to Carnegie Hall in New York City, to name a few.
Clevelanders can count themselves lucky to have a world-class orchestra in their city. Fortunately for the rest of the world, The Cleveland Orchestra takes touring and travel seriously, aiming to visit as many locations as fiscally possible to reach new audiences, make new musical connections, and act as cultural ambassadors through music. As the world continues to reopen after the initial COVID-19 lockdowns, the Orchestra will continue to explore music halls across the globe. After visiting over 45 countries throughout its tenure, The Cleveland Orchestra will not stop anytime soon.
All photographs and audio clips courtesy of The Cleveland Orchestra Archives.